Italy barely covers up a spyware scandal
25 February 2025
Meloni's cabinet is in the midst of a spyware scandal and hasn't done too well in navigating itself out of it. Many obfuscations, contradictions, and secret contracts later, the government pulled the nuclear option: classifying the whole thing. All documents related to the case are now "state secrets." How did we get here?
The news broke in January: around 90 activists and journalists across Europe were spied on via their phones. The culprit is Graphite, a spyware software developed by the Israeli company Paragon Solutions. Graphite allows for remote monitoring and tracking of user activity. It can read messages, record calls, track location, and exfiltrate data from mobile devices.
Out of the 90 people involved, 7 use Italian phone numbers. Two of them went public: Francesco Cancellato, the director of Fanpage, an investigative outlet, and Luca Casarini, founder of the NGO "Mediterranea", working to save migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. Both strongly oppose Meloni's work and politics.
Earlier this month, the opposition asked for clarifications. This is where the government started to wiggle and obfuscate.
At first, they denied any involvement of the intelligence services in the Paragon case. That didn't last long, as both The Guardian and Haaretz reported how Paragon terminated its contracts with the Italian government, just a week after the two Italian victims of the spy attack went public.
The government and both directors of the national secret service then reluctantly admitted that they had a business relationship with Paragon. Yet, all parties denied spying on journalists or activists.
As the opposition started to protest the lack of transparency, Meloni sent her people to figure out the mess for her. Secretary of the Council of Ministers, Alfredo Mantovano, explained how the government decided to classify every document in this case, labelling it as a "state secret". This means that the government can no longer share any information about the matter, as that would compromise Italy's national security. The opposition already challenged this decision, but awaits a decision.
Just a day later, the minister of justice Carlo Nordio spoke on the matter, almost immediately violating the classification of the case. A chaotic response, and a sign that Meloni's government lacked a coherent response to the scandal.
 | Benedetta Di Placido We might still get answers beyond Italy. Whatsapp confirmed to Italian authorities that numbers from all over Europe were among those targeted, namely: Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden all had contracts with Paragon, while the Greek data protection authority confirmed that Paragon was used to spy Greek nationals too. This case is the greatest threat to the freedom of the press in Italy in recent years. Although the government threatened constitutional rights before, with cases of police brutality during Genova’s G8, during recent protests for Palestine, torturing inmates or through racial profiling, press freedom remained seemingly largely protected, until now. Besides the opposition requesting the declassification of the documents, the national union of journalists and a legal team of the NGO Mediterranea now also launched a complaint against the government. Still, the reaction from the general public has remained limited. It seems that the violence and bullying of Meloni's government managed to subdue citizens, who don't feel the need to react in the face of a worrying case like this. |
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